Tag Archives: Featured

Business, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Lapsed Retail

42 Comments

I’ve always been fascinated by empty store fronts.  Always a little sad because a business hasn’t made it and intensely curious about what will replace it.  There are three particular spots on my horizon.

In 2013, Beek’s Pizza and Diamond Lake Rentals just off of 54th and Lyndale were destroyed by a spectacular fire.  It was January; the fire department had a devil of a time and the water froze into sheets of ice.  It actually looked like a bit of an ice palace the first couple of days after the fire.  A few years later they did some digging on the site but only for a few days.  Other than that the lot has sat empty all these years.  Apparently some property management company purchased it in 2021 but not a darn thing has happened.  Personally I’d love to see a bagel shop but I won’t hold my breath.

Near 50th and Xerxes there used to be a Michelangelos Pizza.  It was a favorite spot of mine – great pizza and a fabulous salad with riced provolone cheese.  They closed suddenly for renovations in 2017 and then never re-opened.  Apparently they found more structural problems than they anticipated and then the owner of the building passed away.  Somebody’s been working on it since last winter and the Tono’s Pizzeria and Cheesesteak sign went up a few weeks ago.  I drive that direction a lot and I have to say, they’re not moving at the speed of light. 

The other sad dark retail that I pay attention to is the huge ex-Rainbow Foods storefront down on 66th and Nicollet.  I used to shop at that Rainbow but knew it was in a death spiral.  Store needs money to keep it up to date, since store isn’t up to date, people stop shopping.  I was not surprised when it closed in 2018.  I know that the Rainbow brand is owned by Jerry’s so I was hoping that they would fix it up, rebrand it and re-open, but that hasn’t happened.  Early last fall there were signs up saying it would be a Halloween store, but that never happened.  They only action the spot sees these days is the big fireworks tent in the parking lot every July.

I suppose some of the reason I’m fascinated is that I know that space/land just sitting there in a retail-zoned spot is costing somebody money.  I’m guessing you still have to pay taxes on the property, even if you don’t have a thriving business.  Rainbow/Jerry’s is probably working to do something with the space, but the other two spots had to have been chewing a hole in somebody’s pocket for all these years.  And the Beek’s property has actually had some legal action due to the inactivity, so even more expenditures. 

Not sure what I’ll do when these storefronts aren’t empty any longer.  I support I’ll find others to stalk.

What kind of business would you like to see open near you?

2024, animals, Family, Nature, Uncategorized

Poofy Duck Fix

43 Comments

No, this is not a farm report. 

But it’s related to Ben’s Farm Reports – since he’s not providing me with my periodic poofy duck fix, I had to go out an do it myself!

YA took a Road Day (days off that she is allotted whenever she has a program that runs over a weekend) and decided that we needed to head off into the wilds of Wisconsin to pet and feed deer and other assorted animals.

It was a lovely day at Fawn-Doe-Rosa.  They’re a little overloaded with deer this year.. mild winter made for some increase along with a duo of surprise triplets.  The obligatory baby goats, two beautiful baby gray foxes were the new additions this year.  I spent a fair amount of time feeding the llamas, alpacas, baby horses and donkeys.  The adorable Highland steer from the past two years has moved to a nearby farm because he doubled in size from last year so not safe to have little kids trying to feed and pet him. 

We had packed a picnic lunch and found a shady spot overlooking the lake.  (I made pasta salad this morning using green beans, tomatoes, pepper and basil from my garden.)  Overall incredibly relaxing and fun.  And I was glad to see more improvements this year – a new baby animal area along a large “interactive” building that is under construction.  Can’t wait til next year to see how it turns out!

Any touristy/vacation places you visit regularly?

History, Media, Movies, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

How the West Wasn’t Won

43 Comments

One of my friends, Jennifer, occasionally writes fan-fic.  I had never heard of fan-fic before she started writing it.  It’s just what it sounds like – “fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.”   There is actually an incredibly large fan-fic community – websites, writing groups, conventions and even awards. 

Most fan-fic writers focus on just one or two particular shows/movies.  Jennifer, who is a great reader of history and fantasy, writes from Lancer, a western that ran for two seasons in the late 60s.  She doesn’t have an answer as to why she chose Lancer – she says she can’t really remember what initially sparked her interest.

The “maybe I should watch the show that my friend has written for all these years” bug got into my brain.  We haven’t talked about Lancer for a few years and for some reason, my brain got Lancer mixed up with High Chapparal, another western from the same time period.  When I asked her if she had a DVD or video of High Chapparal, I was surprised when she said no.  But I didn’t ask and ended up finding the High Chapparal DVDs through interlibrary loan.  

As I was watching the very first episode, I texted her with some snarky comment about the wife/mother not lasting the first season and the following conversation was when we realized I was barking up the wrong western tree.  She laughed and said now she knew why I was asking about High Chaparral and I laughed now that I knew why she didn’t have a DVD or video of it!

I didn’t make it past Episode 4.  It was too stark and violent to my taste; I’m sure the makers were trying to make it “realistic” but I didn’t care for it at all.  And (SPOILER ALERT) the wife/mother didn’t even make it to the end of the first episode!   And Lancer didn’t do it for me either – a bit too much late 60s attitude applied to the 1870s.  After three episodes I decided that it wouldn’t damage my friendship with Jennifer if I didn’t watch another.  At least I now know enough about the background and the characters that if she ever asks me to read any of her fan-fic, I will have some clue to start with!

Are there any western tv shows or movies that you like?

2024, animals, Art, Farming Update, Mysteries, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

John Barleycorn Must Die

57 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I struggled with the question of “why” this week. Since I broke the brush mower last week, (did I mention I broke it? I talked about it rattling, and the bolts coming loose, and then… I don’t know what happened, but it started to shake itself apart. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, and I just parked it and walked away. I gotta deal with other stuff for a while and then I’ll come back to it.)

Consequently I was mowing weeds with the lawnmower and was asking myself why I felt the need to mow these weeds. There are some places I can justify, like in the oat fields the waterways are full of tall grass and weeds and they make it a problem for swathing, they’re a problem for combining, and they are a problem for baling, so it makes sense to mow them. But then I get off in the pastures or field roads and yeah, there’s some weeds that it’s good to take down like thistles, buttonweeds, (velvet leaf), ragweed, and wild parsnip, but if it’s just grass, why am I mowing it?

The larger question of “why“ can be applied to illness, sicknesses, the political party of your choice, or any host of things. 

So that’s what’s been on my mind.

Daughter and I also talked about making decisions and why that’s so hard sometimes. It’s a learned skill, isn’t it? 

Earlier this week, I was a bit anxious because I should have already been cutting oats. I was anxious about how the swather was going to run, I was anxious about the weather, I was anxious about how the Oats would do, and how to get it hauled to the place in Iowa. 

And let’s face it, I was scared. Scared the swather would break down, scared I wouldn’t be able to fix it, scared of just the whole thing. But eventually I put on my big boy pants, and started cutting oats. And yep, it quits after an hour and a half. It’s like it got a vapor lock or something. An hour later I can start it again and cut some more. And I’m working on a trucker, so we still just wait to see on the weather and how the oats does and it will all be OK, won’t it? 

 A few of the ducks were out one morning and having a good time in the taller grass, so the next morning we opened the fence and let them all out. Generally, that’s kind of how it works; They get out themselves and then we decide it’s OK to let them go.   And they are having a really good time in the deep grass and finding bugs and they look very very happy. I know I counted 26 ducks one day and then there only seemed to be 24, and the next day I counted 26 again. I don’t know how that works.

The dogs cornered a raccoon up in a tree for the third time in about two weeks. They appear to be fairly small raccoons so they must be young. I suppose along the same lines of me wondering where the ducks go when they get freedom, some raccoon mother somewhere is wondering what becomes of her children when they venture out on their own someplace.

The show in Chatfield that I’m lighting is “SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical”.

You’re probably not familiar with SpongeBob, we are all too old to have seen it as kids, you might be aware of it from Mall of America, or grandchildren, or neighbors, and it’s just silly fun. I haven’t looked too hard for a message in this musical. (turns out there are some!) I’m just making big bright colors. The woman who is designing some of the scenery, Vicky, did some really cool things with pool noodles and expandable spray foam. The guys who built the structure run a welding and machine shop and they can build just about anything. (They can fix my brush mower too!) It’s not done the way I would do it as a “theater professional” but it is certainly good enough for a show.

Driving to Chatfield gives me 20 miles of country roads to see how the crops are doing. There are a couple different ways I take to get there but generally, I take the straight shot back home on Hwy 52. Especially when it’s dark.

I started working in Chatfield’s Potter Auditorium in 1987 and I built the sets there for about three years, then took a break for a long time before coming back to light a few more shows. I feel a deep connection to this place. The people are great to work with. It is a true community theater in every sense of the word. There will be a big potluck lunch on Sunday before we have our first dress rehearsal.

WHAT MESSAGE OR STORY FROM A SONG HAS ALWAYS STAYED WITH YOU?  

2024, Family, History, Music, Uncategorized

Senior Romance

27 Comments

Husband and I were contemplating the possibility that we would have a bumper crop of eggplants, and sat down together in the living room to search the New York Times Food app and other on-line sites for eggplant recipes in the event our fears came true. Husband commented that it was such a nice thing to be able to sit down with one’s partner of many years and do something as simple and as satisfying as hunt for recipes, and that this was a wonderful example of senior romance. He then told me that he ran across a You Tube video of a song by Holly Williams, and that it reminded him of my parents. He played the video for me. It was quite sweet. She wrote it about her grandparents.

This brought to mind the Nanci Griffith number that I have always loved:

Both my sets of grandparents were married for more than 50 years, and were pretty devoted, but also pretty crabby with each other at times. I remember taking care of my paternal grandfather while my grandmother was having gall bladder surgery, I was about 17, and he needed care as he had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side and had his left leg amputated due to diabetes. He was always pretty stoic, but told me out of the blue while I was helping him get his prosthesis on that “She’s a pretty good grandma, you know”, which was his way of telling me that he was worried about her and he wanted her to come home.

Who are the most devoted older couples you know? Other examples of sweet senior romance in songs or stories?

2024, Food, Mysteries, Uncategorized

The Tipsy Steer

48 Comments

I’m ashamed to have to admit it but I’m really not a very adventuresome eater.  When I find a restaurant or a particular dish that I like, I’m loyal.  I stick to it like glue.  There are often pangs of guilt involved in this.  Whenever I’m about to order my favorite, it occurs to me that I could try something else.  Maybe I would love it just as much.  But I rarely take the chance.

So when my friend Tony said we should have lunch on my side of town, I decided it had to be at a new place.  I spent a lot of time googling restaurants, looking at the menus, checking the ratings/reviews.  Finally found a place called the Tipsy Steer over on Hiawatha.  I will admit that the name was the hook but the menu had a good variety that I was sure would give Tony and me options.

We sat outside on the patio (overcast but cool so perfect weather for it) and then I found another selling point.  All of their different burger combinations can be made with a meatless burger option!  I love that although it does make it a much longer process for me to pick something.  I settled on a Pimento Cheese & Olive Tapenade with Roasted Red Pepper Burger.  They serve the burgers on metal platters with a nice helping of fries – nice presentation. 

The burger was fabulous.  I’ve never had pimento cheese OR olive tapenade on a burger before and I have to say it was an excellent combination.  It was messy, but we had plenty of napkins.  Tony had a straight up cheeseburger which he reported was great.  The fries were no slouches either.  We had grabbed to-do containers before the food even arrived – good thing – the burgers were huge – we needed to put half of them in the containers right away!

I was so happy to have chosen a new restaurant and tried something different.  Now the only problem is getting myself to try a different burger when I take YA there sometime soon!

How do you like your burgers?  Ever had a burger that you would consider “adventuresome”?

2024, Fantasy, Food, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

High as an Elephant’s Eye

37 Comments

I was glad to see how tall Ben’s corn is last week.  The summer has been good for me – after last summer’s blisteringly dry heat, I’m enjoying the slightly milder temps and the rain.  I haven’t even had to get the sprinklers out of the garage yet. 

And Iowa must be doing OK as well.  My next-door neighbors were gone for about 10 days – visiting the grandparents south of the border.  When they travel in the summer, I always water their outdoor plants; it’s easy as they just pull all the pots over to the fence and I can just apply the hose to them whenever I am watering my bales.

I’m happy to do it and I don’t think of it as an onerous chore (especially when it rains so much) so I was surprised when they came home with a bag full of corn for me as a thank you.  Straight off the farmstand corn and the pretty kind I like best – yellow and white. 

The only problem with 12 ears of fresh corn is when you are the only one home for over a week.  YA was away on a work program.  There was no way I was going to waste all that gorgeous corn so I rolled up my sleeves and dived in.

I saved two for just eating and de-kernelled (is that a word?) the rest.  Froze one bag then made a double batch of corn salsa (froze some), a lovely fresh kernel cornbread and then a fun garden veggie pizza with ricotta as sauce.  All done in three hours! 

So now I’ve processed cherries and corn this summer.  Wonder what else will come my way?

What kind of foodstuff would you like to have too much of?

2024, books, Mysteries

Signals

35 Comments

Photo credit:  Greg Messier

A librarian once remarked on the variety of books I was checking out (this was in the era before the automatic check-out stations).  I don’t remember what the particular books were, but it was probably a fair assessment; I’m like the moth – easily drawn to whatever light is on in my vicinity.

Last week The Green Bay Tree by Louis Blomfield arrived by my local library.  I will admit that it’s been on my Hold list for quite some time; after pushing off the hold date for quite some time, I finally decided it was time to either read it or let it go.  I read a biography of Louis Blomfield a couple of years ago – not sure what brought him to my attention – so that’s why I wanted to read Green Bay Tree – it was his first novel, published in 1924.

The day before I picked up the book at the library, the Italian word “semaforo” came  up on my daily Italian lesson; it means traffic light.  Since I knew semaphore is the use of flags as signals, I looked up the etymology to see how the Italians could get from signal flags to traffic lights.  (Turns out to be pretty easy as it comes from the Greek, sema = sign/signal and phoros = bearer.  I filed it away in my mental junk drawer.

Imagine my surprise when the next day, on page one of The Green Bay Tree, I came across this:

“Where death had touched the barrier it was possible to see beyond the borders of the garden into regions filled with roaring furnace, steel sheds, and a tangle of glittering railway tracks cluttered by a confusion of semaphore and signal lights which the magic of night transformed into festoons of glowing jewels – emeralds, rubies, cauchons, opals, glowing in the thick darkness.”

This sent me down a rabbit-hole looking for all the various types of signals that have borne the name “semaphore” over the years.  I won’t bore you with all of them but I did find this picture:

It’s called a railway semaphore, so it’s pretty clear that the Italians aren’t taking a big leap to call their traffic lights “semafori”.

As always I am blown away by the coincidence of coming across semaphore twice in two days.

Any words on the tip of your tongue this week?

 

 

 

2024, Fantasy, Kids, Music, Mysteries, Songs, Theatre, Uncategorized

Prince Among Men

31 Comments

My little friend next door, Minnie, loves to sing and dance.  For the past two summers she had done a summer camp at the Lundstrum Performing Arts Center; this year they presented Annie Jr (just a shorter version of Annie).  Considering that it is all untrained kids and that they get the whole thing together in two weeks, they did a great job.

This was all that Minnie talked about for two weeks.  In addition to previewing the song/dance that she was in, she regaled me with stories of how things were progressing and who was playing what part.  There were several kids who had been in Little Mermaid with her last year and although I did see the show last year, I couldn’t have told you any of the players except Minnie. 

Of course there was also the post-production discussion the day after the last performance.  I commented that the young man who played Rooster Hannigan did a nice job.  He also had a great dance solo dressed as a street Santa in the N.Y.C. song.  Minnie quickly pointed out that he had played Prince Eric in Little Mermaid.  When I said I hadn’t remembered that, she commented that he hadn’t had to do very much to be the prince.  Then she added, almost as an afterthought, that princes don’t usually have much to do. 

In her world, all her princesses and princes are represented by Disney.  As I thought about it the next few days, I realized that Disney has, for the most part, not spent too much energy on princes.  Snow White’s prince doesn’t have a name, Sleeping  Beauty’s prince does have a name (and a bit of backstory) but doesn’t have much personality.  Cinderella’s prince is also pretty non-descript.  Ariel’s prince is a little bland and definitely clueless.  Belle’s prince spends most of the movie as a beast and Tiana’s prince spends most of the movie as a frog.  Merida has three princes, all of whom are a bit… lacking.  A few princes fare a bit better in their Disney representation but clearly it’s all about the princesses. 

I’m not too worried about this unfair portrayal – I doubt that young girls and boys are too damaged by this uneven treatment.  But I also don’t believe that Barbie dolls are inherently evil either. 

If you were to be a Disney princess or prince (or villain if you prefer) for a week, who would you choose?

2024, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Uncategorized

Round & Round

40 Comments

The weekend Farm Update comes to us from Ben.

I’ve got the brush mower on and I’ve started mowing weeds. We have a good crop of thistles. They’re taller than the tractor!

I went around the mullen’s.

As always though, majority rules.

Mowing waterways is a good opportunity to go down the middle of the field and see the crops. The corn is taller than me and the tractor in places.

Soybeans are not quite up to my knees yet, but they’ve got blossoms on them. The oats are up to my waist, but the quackgrass is quickly taking over. My neighbor who combines the oats, will be out of town this weekend and next. The oats aren’t quite ready to swath, yet it’s starting to go down (from the rust fungus weakening the stalk) plus the grass taking over, so I hate to wait too much longer. I’m thinking by the end of next week I’ll want to be cutting it. It will need to lay and dry for a few days before it will be ready for combining.

I had an email this week from the oat growers who market it for food grade vs animal food. The price at the food grade plant is $4.30 / bushel. At the local elevator, it’s $3 / bushel. That’s pretty hard to pass up the higher price. Yet I need to get it hauled down to the plant in Iowa, and the grain needs to be heavy enough for them to accept it. All things that are harder for a small operator like me to coordinate. Not impossible, but harder. And, of course, it costs money to haul it to Iowa, too. So there’s always a trade off. I’m still working out details.

The ducks are doing well. We bought them a kiddie pool last week and they’re big enough to get in, but not big enough to get out, so there’s a big rock in the pool.  They’ve figured out how to go into their pen on their own at night. They’re fun, when I go out there and call to them, they all call back to me. It isn’t quite a ‘quack’ yet, still more of a ‘peep’. I call out “Hello ducks! Hey Kids!” and they’re all “peep, peep, peep”. They know I’m bringing food. They don’t want to be picked up or anything, but they come over closer too me. This sure is an interesting looking bunch. I can’t wait to see what they look like when grown up. Notice the black spots on the feet of some of them.

I spent most of the week working on the Rep Theater stage again. I’ve had good help from my buddy Paul, and Chris, Michael, Doug, Max, and Noah. Max and Noah are the teenage boys helping me this summer. Max hasn’t done anything like this construction before. He’s learned and used a lot of new tools (and found the chalk line really fascinating- although he doesn’t come out and say that). He’s a good kid, a hard worker, smart, and good to have around.

The majority of the work is done, the main stage is done and has one layer on it. Next up will be the second layer of 3/4″ plywood and a top layer of 1/8″ plywood. We call it ‘lauan’, but the lumber yards don’t know it by that name. And it used to be $10 / sheet. Double that now. Jeepers. And 3/4″ plywood is $40. And that’s not even the fancy sanded stuff.

I did get a little bit done in the shed at home and replaced the windshield washer pump and one nozzle on my truck. Cut some grass one night.

A couple years ago, four of the bolts holding a gear box on the brush mower got loose. My brother and I tightened them up. They came loose again. This summer we replaced the bolts and put ‘lock-tite’ on them. After mowing for a day, they’re loose AGAIN. I need another helper to tighten them up again, but I’m afraid this might turn into a bigger repair job requiring a piece of steel welded underneath or something. I dread adding it to my list again.

It’s finally drying up around the barn and yard a bit, so that’s good.

Ever had a pedicure? What color would you paint your toenails tonight?